Newark program helps revitalize, celebrate city with murals painted by youths

403 Forbidden

NEWARK — For years, the community-building organization La Casa de Don Pedro has gone about its work with little fanfare from a slightly shabby brick building on Broadway in Newark, just north of I-280. Now passersby on the street — even commuters whizzing by on the elevated highway — find themselves passing through its doors.

Over the summer, Chilean graffiti artist Dasic Fernandez and a group of local teens designed and painted a vibrant mural called "You and Me, an Extraordinary Experience" on the side of the building, which is visible from the highway.

"Some people have actually come around and stopped at the agency," said Ed Hernandez, the director of youth, family and health services. "They had been driving by there for years, and it was always a plain wall. This got their attention."

The mural is one of six unveiled this year as part of the City Murals program, organized by Newark’s City Without Walls gallery with help from the city of Newark, the Prudential Foundation and Community Partners and others.

The program, modeled after a similar initiative in Philadelphia, is designed to help revitalize Newark from the outside in, with murals that celebrate the city’s assets. The murals are produced by youngsters who will become — at least, that’s the plan — part of Newark’s creative economy.

Organizations donating a wall get a say in the design and must agree to maintain the mural for 10 years. Hernandez said La Case de Don Pedro met with Fernandez, a street artist who has spray-painted murals (by invitation) all over the world, and talked to him about representing the diverse population of the city in the mural.

"It has a little bit of everything," Hernandez said. "Families and the elderly and children and ... people with glasses, like me, so everyone’s included. You don’t get bored looking at it. It’s amazing to see."

A little more than a mile way, the Greater Newark Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to educating urban children about gardening and the environment, transformed the interior of a blighted commercial building on Springfield Avenue into its new administration offices. The conservancy wanted an exterior to reflect the vibrancy of its teaching garden next door.

Robin Dougherty, the executive director, had heard about the mural project and nominated her organization for the series. GlassRoots, another Newark non-profit that nurtures underserved children through its after-school glassmaking programs, came on board, with two of its instructors working with high school students to create a striking mirrored mosaic of a tree spreading its arms over flowerbeds and silhouettes of the students themselves.

John Munson/The Star-LedgerNewark's City Murals program at 23 Broadway, Newark.

The murals not only beautify blank or decaying walls, but help the students who create them in ways they may not initially forsee, said Rodney Gilbert, the senior program adviser for City Without Walls. "We are trying to get them ready for a 21st Century work ethic, and thinking about a job and a future," he said. "We are trying to educate them through the murals. It’s about learning your gift."

The students, some from GlassRoots, some from the conservancy’s learning center, began planning the mural in July. They started in the garden, photographing flowers, practicing their drawing skills with design sketches and brainstorming on garden-themed additions to the final design.

Then they worked at the GlassRoots headquarters on Bleeker Street to shape colorful bits of glass into sunflowers and lilies that were then applied to the wall.

"It was a really good match for me," says Arif Riyad, an Arts High School student and volunteer at the conservancy. "At Glass Roots, I haven’t stopped drawing, I haven’t stopped making glass, I haven’t stopped working — I just love this place."

The students have a sense of pride and ownership of the mural, Gilbert said, and the idea is that it will spread to those who live in the neighborhood.

"The people in the community would walk by and talk to the kids, telling them what a wonderful job they were doing," said June Bennett, the GlassRoots program director. "Even people driving along Springfield Avenue would be curious and stop by to ask about GlassRoots and the conservancy — a lot of people didn’t even know it was there."

La Case de Don Pedro’s Hernandez said some of the students who worked on its mural had been involved in the organization, but the project attracted other youth from the neighborhood.

"They were drawn in by watching other kids, and they assisted, which is great," he said. "It was nice to dress it up with something like that. We’re all going through this with the economy and the recession. This brought a little life into the area."
Staff writer Vicki Hyman contributed to this report.